Red
Sky July is an exciting alt-country super-group made up of Shelly Poole
(Alisha’s Attic), Ally McErlaine (Texas) and Charity Hair (Alice Band). They
are back with a special EP of tracks remixed by the great and the good called 'Radio Mixes' and we
got to speak to Ally from the band about this incredible release that we love
here at KBPS, that is out on the 16th June.
Thank you for joining us for
the interview Ally! Could you give us a flavour of the EP?
It’s
four of the best tracks from the last album. We’ve remixed them and we’re going
to be putting out four videos as well. We don’t know if there’s a point in
singles any more so we just wanted to put out these songs, as different versions
from the album.
What makes them different
from the album tracks?
They’ve
been remixed by various mixers so they’re all sonically different.
Did you pick those tracks as
a band and was it a difficult choice?
It
was pretty easy. It was just the four tracks that were going to be singles off
the album, the tracks we had made videos for but not put out yet, putting them
all out as an EP.
Was making the videos a good
experience?
Yes!
One of the videos was filmed at the boxing gym where we go, and another is our
niece with a hula hoop. Another video was filmed with a drone, and one is a
light performance, so they’re all very different to each other.
Do you have a personal
favourite track or video?
I’ve
always liked ‘Sway’; it was my favourite song on our last record but it never
quite made it out as a single so we’ll hopefully get some attention for it off
this EP.
For those who are knew to
you through this EP, you have several albums – what would you suggest as the
best introduction to your sound?
We’ve
made three albums and they’re all a progression. There’s ‘Red Sky July’, ‘Shadowbirds’
and ‘The Truth and the Lie’. If I’m honest I like them all equally! They
can all be bought from iTunes.
You have live dates coming
up in July; how would you describe your live sound?
On
the album we’ve got a full band with drums and keys and strings, but when we
play live we just play as a three-piece so it’s myself, Shelley and Charity
singing harmonies. It’s quite stripped down with the guitar, mandolin and
fiddle. We like to communicate a lot with the audience so it can be quite funny
at times, but we never play the same set list twice so every gig is different.
That must keep it
interesting for you as a musician?
It
does! Unless we’re doing a tour or several gigs in a night where we have to
rehearse for it and make it an event in itself.
Are you excited about
supporting Jim Lauderdale?
Yeah,
it’s cool, as I love his work and I really like the venues we’re playing in. It’s
the Stables and King's Place in London. They’re really nice venues!
As a band you’ve been
involved individually with Alisha’s Attic, Texas and the Alice Band among
others; that must be exciting to have all that talent coming together?
Yeah.
We didn’t really have a chance to do the music we wanted to do in our
respective bands so we all did this project to allow us to play country and the
roots side of our music, and it’s a bit alternative, so it’s a little
left-field at times. It was kind of a labour of love at first but it’s become
an on-going project.
What’s the plan after your
EP release?
We’ve
already started working on new music and we’ve got lots of ideas. My feelings
are that the age of albums is possibly over and we should concentrate more on
EPs. I’m not sure if people will sit and listen to albums all the way through.
I think we’ve all got lifestyles now where that doesn’t happen. I know I do,
and a lot of other people do, but I’m not sure everybody does as much as they
used to. Nowadays people listen to music a lot on the go, a lot of the time in
playlists.
Towards
Christmas I’ve got a long tour with Texas to do and then I’ll be back to do Red
Sky July stuff next year, and hopefully we’ll slot in a few gigs before
Christmas as well!
Finally, what are your
ambitions for the rest of the year?
With
the Texas tour happening I’ve got to balance that. Next year we hope to have
another album out or a few EPs or whatever, but we’re always constantly writing
songs to better ourselves. We just really enjoy making music for the sake of it
and if people want to have a listen we’re glad!
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